Susan Glaspell’s short story “A Jury of Her Peers” is a repeated “Trifles”, but with more details. Both the play and the short story have the same plot and characters. Even though Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” is a more detailed Trifles, there are three aspect of differentiation between the story and the play, including exposition, character feelings, and story details.
The exposition of both Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers starts in an untidy kitchen. In the play, the gloomy kitchen is in John Wright’s farmhouse. Pans are unwashed, bread is left outside, and towels are out of place. This is Mrs. Wright’s kitchen that has been left untouched since the murder of her husband. In the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”, Susan Glaspell sets the story in Martha Hale’s kitchen. Martha was ready to make bread, with flour half sifted and half not. She dropped everything when Mr. Peters told her his wife wished she’d join them to John Wright’s house.
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Character’s feelings and thoughts were not portrayed in the play, as they were in the short story.
In Trifles, Glaspell seemed to aim at getting through the scene, straight to the point. However, in “A Jury of Her Peers”, she went further into details about characters feelings and emotions, specifically Mrs. Hale’s emotions. On two occasions Glaspell explain how Martha hated seeing things half done. The first was in Martha’s kitchen, when she had to drop everything and leave. The second occasion was in Mrs. Wright’s kitchen where Glaspell explains, “She made a move as if to finish it,--unfinished things always bothered her” From this I can conclude that Martha is a very well organized
housewife. Lastly the story had a differentiation spot in terms of details. In the play certain details were rushed and put in parenthesis. In the short story Glaspell went into a lot of details in each section. For example, in Trifles Glaspell states “(…With a sign, is about to sit down in the rocking chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back.)”, (Kennedy and Gioia 1111). The descriptions of the scene are quick to give the reader a gist of the setting. In the short story, during this same part Glaspell writes, “with another sigh, started to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened--stepped back, and, half turned away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there "pleatin' at her apron." In conclusion, A Jury of Her Peers is a repeated Trifles, but goes more in depth in terms of characters feelings and emotions, and goes deeper in details in each scene. I personally enjoyed reading the play more than the story, because I felt like I was watching it happen in front of me, rather than reading it. Even though both stories are the same Susan Glaspell did a great job in capturing the same reader for both stories.
I. Article Summary: Suzy Clarkson Holstein's article, “Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell's 'Trifles'” evaluates the play Trifles and how the difference between the men in the play mirror how a woman's perspective is very different from a man's. Trifles is about two women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, who show up at a house with their husbands and the county attorney to investigate a murder. The entire time the men are looking for evidence to implicate the accused wife, Minnie Wright, of killing her husband. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale are there to gather up some items to bring Minnie Wright in jail. While doing so, the women uncover evidence that would prove the wife is culpable but decide to hide it from the men in the last moments of the play. Trifles is evaluated on how the women are able to come up with the evidence unlike the men because they didn't approach it like a crime scene but rather a home, “By contrast, the women arrive at a home. Although neither they or the men realize it, they too are conducting an investigation” (Holstein 283). Holstein also notes they are able to find evidence because they use their own life experiences to relate to the accused murderer, Minnie Wright as shown here; “But the women do not simply remember and sympathize with Minnie. They identify with her, quite literally” (285). Holstein finishes the article by noting the women decide to hide the evidence because of the solidarity they feel towards Minnie Wright; “From Mrs. Hale's perspective, people are linked together through fragile, sometimes imperceptible strands. The tiny trifles of life –a neighbor's visit, a bird's song, the sewing of a quilt –have profound reverberations” (287).
Susan Glaspell was an American playwright, novelist, journalist, and actress. She married in 1903 to a novelist, poet, and playwright George Cram Cook. In 1915 with other actors, writers, and artists they founded Provincetown Players a group that had six seasons in New York City between 1916-1923. She is known to have composed nine novels, fifteen plays, over fifty short stories, and one biography. She was a pioneering feminist writer and America’s first import and modern female playwright. She wrote the one act play “Trifles” for the Provincetown Players was later adapted into the short shorty “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. A comparison in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and “A Jury of Her Peers” changes the titles, unfinished worked, and
The stories Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are both written by Susan Glaspell. The main event in both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” is a murder in the kitchen. Both stories cover the murder of Mrs.Wright’s husband. But, while both Trifles and “A Jury of Her Peers” are about the same story, and the characters are the same, the points of view differ in the two texts.
In their discussion of supposedly unimportant items, such as the ill-stitched quilt, broken bird cage door, and dead canary, the women are able to collect important evidence and know enough information about Mrs. Wright to give her a motive for murdering her husband. The men, though, are clueless as to who killed Mr. Wright and why, even after they thoroughly search the house for clues. They believe that they possess superior intelligence and knowledge of the world in comparison to women, but cannot find enough evidence to convict Mrs. Wright. Even if the men did uncover the same clues as the women, it is highly unlikely that they would understand how that would make for a motive for Mrs. Wright, as they simply cannot relate to her as a female. Glaspell's Trifles shows how women reveal basic truths about life by paying close attention to detail, and shows the true importance of the things which men generally find to be trivial.
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, was written in 1916, reflects the author’s concern with stereotypical concepts of gender and sex roles of that time period. As the title of the play implies, the concerns of women are often considered to be nothing more than unimportant issues that have little or no value to the true work of society, which is being performed by men. The men who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable to solve the mystery through their supposed superior knowledge. Instead, two women are able decipher evidence that the men overlook because all of the clues are entrenched in household items that are familiar mainly to women during this era. Glaspell expertly uses gender characterization, setting, a great deal of symbolism and both dramatic and verbal irony, to expose social divisions created by strict gender roles, specifically, that women were limited to the household and that their contributions went disregarded and underappreciated.
Hedges, Elaine. A. "Small Things Reconsidered: Susan Glaspell's 'A Jury of Her Peers'. " Women's Studies 12.1 (1986): 89. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web.
Grose, Janet L. “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’: Feminine Reading and
In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, a small number of people are at the Wright house trying to figure out why and how Mr. Wright was murdered. Mrs. Wright is already the suspect, and all that is needed for the case is evidence for a motive. The jury needs something to show anger or sudden feeling so that they can convict her for murder. The men, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Peters, and Mr. Hale are there to find the evidence. The women, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, are there to pick up a select few items for Mrs. Wright. While the men are going about business and looking for evidence to build a case against Mrs. Wright, the women are looking over what Mrs. Wright left behind and intuitively trying to understand what happened. They are also trying to fathom why Mrs. Wright would be compelled to perform such an act of violence. As the story goes on, it constructs each of the characters in slightly different means. Susan Glaspell presents Mr. Wright and Mrs. Hale as having contrasting and comparable characteristics. While Mrs. Hale and Mr. Wright differ in terms of emotions, they are similar in their cleanliness and are well respected by others.
...g to conceive to her audience by proving all opinions matter no matter whose it is. By looking in the past the audience can see that the story shows some significant similarities to the time it was written in. Glaspell shows women how a united cause can show the world that women should have just as much rights as men do. The theme of the story is expressly told through how and why Mr. Wright is murdered and Mrs. Peters transformation at the end of the story. Film adaptations that changed the title of Trifles to A Jury of Her Peers probably did it to appeal to the male audience and include a double meaning of how a jury can hold bias even with evidence directly given to them.
In Trifles, the play takes place at an abandon house at a farm where John Wright and his wife, Minnie Wright lived. John was killed with a rope around his neck while his wife was asleep. The neighbor, county attorney and sheriff came to the crime scene for investigation. Along with them came their wives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters; they were told to grab some belongings for Mrs. Wright that she may need while she’s in custody. Once they all entered the home the men dismissed the kitchen finding it as unimportant. The three men focused more on legal regulations of the law. The play was mostly revolved around the women, discovering the motive through “trifles” and other symbolic things that had significance to Minnie’s guilt. When Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters understood the reason behind the murdering they hid the evidence from their husbands, and kept quiet. Many readers would visualize this play as a feminist point of view due to women’s bonding in discovering Minnie’s oppressive life after marriage. However Glaspell, provokes two ethical paradigms that have different perspectives of justice. Glaspell uses symbolism to characterize women’s method in a subjective way, by empowering themselves through silence, memories of her and their own lives as well as having empathy about her sit...
People worry about what one person or what a group of people think of him or her, students worry about what their classmates and teachers think of them, and the desperate housewives around the block are wondering what the housewives are saying of her. This housewife example is represented perfectly in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles”. With the sheriff in town, everyone in town wants to know what is happening in John Wright’s home, and if his wife, Mrs. Wright had any involvement. The opening scene of “Trifles” is described vividly as the characters are entering John Wright’s abandoned farmhouse. The kitchen is described as “left without having been put in order--unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the table--other signs of incompleted work” (Trifles 1). As the characters walk in and see the mess, they get a bad impression of Mrs. Wright; they saw her as not clean and inefficient. This impression is even more pronounced in Mrs. Peters’ mind as Mrs. Peters did not know Mrs. Wright well enough. Susan Glaspell wrote “Trifles” in 1916 and then it was expected of the majority of women to cook, clean, and do other things to take care of their household. For Mrs. Wright, leaving the kitchen without tidying up says a lot about her character. Leaving unwashed dishes in the sink and food uncovered is not healthy and implies uncleanliness. But usually people like to clean their
Trifles is based on a murder in 1916 that Susan Glaspell covered while she was a journalist with the Des Moines Daily News after she graduated from college. At the end of the nineteenth century, the world of literature saw a large increase of female writers. Judith Fetterley believed that there was an extremely diverse and intriguing body of prose literature used during the nineteenth century by American women. The main idea of this type of literature was women and their lives. The reason all of the literature written by women at this time seems so depressing is due to the fact that they had a tendency to incorporate ideas from their own lives into their works. Glaspell's Trifles lives up to this form of literature, especially since it is based on an actual murder she covered. This play is another look at the murder trial through a woman's point of view.
In the play Trifles, Susan Glaspell brings together three women through a crime investigation in the late nineteenth century. Glaspell uses symbolism, contrast of sexes, and well-constructed characters to show that justice for all is equally important to finding the truth. Perhaps the most prevalent literary device in the Trifles is the rich symbolism. Each of the women in the play are equally important, but come together to become more powerful. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters directly bond, while Mrs. Wright indirectly contributes from jail by leaving them small clues.
Susan Glaspell wrote two different forms of literature that have basically the same plot, setting and characters. This was during a period in which the legal system was unsympathetic to the social and domestic situation of the married woman. She first wrote the drama version “Trifles” in 1916 and then the prose fiction “A Jury of Her Peers” in 1917. The main difference was the way the prose fiction version was presented. Glaspell effects emotional change in the story with descriptive passages, settings and the title. The prose fiction version has a greater degree of emotional penetration than the drama version.
However, they got the last chance to prove that their role is not trifles as presumed by the oppressive society. The effort of the two women to control their fate is evident when they decide to stay loyal to their sexes as a sign of rebellion towards their men who have been controlling their fate. Glaspell succeeds in discussing poignant issues of gender discrimination and oppression. Thus, the choice of the title “Trifles” is appropriate for this drama because the issues highlighted throughout the drama are the unimportant roles played by women in everyday life. The women that are trivialized and dismissed by the male-dominated society win over male prejudice, which disregards the dominant beliefs of gender